


Obsessed and Convicted

by GE72



Category: Law & Order
Genre: Gen, Newspaper story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-25 00:07:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10752594
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GE72/pseuds/GE72
Summary: A newspaper story about the events in the episode "Legacy", including Adam Schiff's closing line.





	Obsessed and Convicted

From the New York Post  
December 4, 1996

First, Jim Shepard was the victim. Then, he was the accused. And yesterday, he was convicted.

Shepard, a 35 year old graphic designer and printer from Manhattan, was convicted for the 1991 murder of Rick Muller in New York State Superior Court. The jury only deliberated for only an hour and a half before handing in the verdict.

The conviction helped bring to an end a twisted five-year story of murder, revenge, and obsession. The case began with Shepard being the target of a hit man. Shepard was nearly killed four months ago by Howard Phillips, who had been hired by Estelle Muller, an elderly widow who believed that Shepard was having an affair with her son’s wife, Robin Muller, and the two of them conspired to murder her son so they could be together. Shepard had a bullet wound to the head, but managed to fully recover. 

Ms. Muller and Mr. Phillips have since pleaded out to attempted murder. Federal authorities have taken Phillips into custody and is scheduled to testify in a trial against organized crime figures he had carried out assignments for.

Rick Muller died in 1991 after falling from a rock formation in Central Park. A medical examiner determined the death was an accident at the time, since Shepard said both him and Muller had been drinking after a softball game they had played in and both had gone to climb the rock formation in the park. Robin Muller later married Shepard a year after her husband’s death.

Later, Muller’s body was exhumed and a thorough autopsy by chief medical examiner Dr. Elizabeth Rogers was conducted. Her findings showed that Muller had been struck in the head by a baseball bat before he fell from the rock formation.

When that evidence was confirmed, New York City police detectives arrested Shepard, who was still recovering from his head wound as an outpatient at St. Justin's Hospital.

Assistant District Attorney Jack McCoy and his second chair, Jamie Ross, initially believed that Shepard and Robin Muller conspired to kill Rick Muller, until they discovered evidence showed that Shepard acted alone in the murder.

The evidence involved a trip to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, by Robin, for a high school reunion, two weeks before her husband’s death. Robin had run into Jim Shepard, who said he was in town on business as a sales representative for the graphic design company he worked for at the time, Atlantic Novelties. The two saw each other at the hotel where the reunion was being held.

On the stand in his defense, Shepard said he was in Harrisburg on business, and had asked Robin to join him for a drink; she politely declined him because of her commitments to her friends and her high school reunion. McCoy then presented into evidence a travel expense sheet for Atlantic Novelties and asked Shepard to show the expenses he incurred for his trip to Harrisburg. The expense sheet had shown no reimbursements for any kind of trip to Harrisburg for that month or at any time.

McCoy pointed out to the jury that Shepard had gone to Harrisburg to “run into” his best friend’s wife because he was obsessed with Robin Muller, not on a business trip as he claimed. From there, McCoy said that the only way Shepard could have Robin for himself was to kill his best friend. That proved Shepard’s motive in the murder.

Shepard’s defense attorney, Julia DeBakey, said that piece of information proved there was no affair between her client and Robin Muller, but McCoy countered that because of Shepard, his wife was no longer certain that his love for her was genuine.

Robin Muller later took the stand, stating that she believed they were just close friends and surprisingly had fallen in love with Shepard after her husband’s death. But now, in retrospect, she believed that Shepard may have been too closely involved and showed too much affection towards her, even though she was already married at the time.

While Shepard was being led out of the courtroom after his conviction, Robin Muller served him with divorce papers. Muller had no comment to reporters after the conviction.

Upon learning about Shepard’s conviction, New York City District Attorney Adam Schiff said, “It’s gotta be tough finding out you married your stalker.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had to edit this later on, because I got the murder victim's first name wrong. It's all fixed now. This particular episode of the series is my personal favorite.  
> Also, for those who have seen this episode of the series: Isn't Adam Schiff's quote at the end of the episode the best closing line ever of the series?


End file.
